


Safe at Anchor.

by withoutwords



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, some language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Act normal, Danny thinks, which is stupid because he gave up normal with HPD and the ties and the keys to his car. He gave up normal with his complete and utter dependency on a man who thinks <i>Loco Moco</i> is a legitimate food choice. Danny’s not sure what normal is any more, not even his normal, because <i>he just kissed Steve</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe at Anchor.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. This is basically me needing to write them hopelessly in love, so if that's not your cup of tea please don't read. 
> 
> AU-ish in that Amber's gone and I've only seen up to 5x15.
> 
> Enjoy :)

When Ellie asks, 

“So do you two have a _thing_ ,” with a pointed look between them, Steve snaps, “No,” so fast Danny can almost hear his jaw crack. He’ll admit, it stings, because it’s not the cute, usual, _how long have you two been married_ jibes they get all the time. She sees it, and Steve sees that, and he’s terrified. The man who watched Danny shoot an unarmed man at close range, vomit into a dug-out posing as a toilet then wipe his face on Steve’s shoulder? _That man_ thinks having sex with Danny is terrifying.

“He means, how funny, another person who thinks we’re fucking,” Danny says with mock joviality, hands splayed. “No, babe, we are just best friends forever with little to no personal boundaries. But that’s cute, I see what you did there.”

Ellie gapes at him a little, tries to hide it with a smirk. “ _Okay_. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“I’m not offended. Steven? Are you offended?”

“No,” Steve says again, and Danny’s not sure if it hurts more than the first one.

“See, there you go, zero offence taken. Well, I’m going to go turn off my phone, pick Grace up from school, and pretend I am not a public servant for a blissful 48 hours,” Danny rambles as he starts heading for the door. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you, you get the picture.”

Danny doesn’t realise his hands are shaking until he’s sitting in the Camaro trying to turn the key and how funny. How hilarious, that he just can’t get it started.

*

Danny’s always been a hot mess.

As a kid, he couldn’t hide it; moving aimlessly from one fist fight to the next to the bottom of some jock’s empty pool, on his back, in a puddle of his own blood. When he found purpose on the force, and Rachel, he started to get better at disguising it. Yes dear, no dear, until they realised they were some compound of chemicals that equalled _explosion_ and although Danny didn’t throw punches any more he threw around a lot of words that hurt.

When Danny met Steve he thought, _here we go again_ , he thought the tie-wearing, slick haired Officer Williams facade he’d played up to the _kama’ aina_ for six months was going to crumble like plaster cast and just leave all the stuff that was broken.

Except, 

Steve was Steve, right from the start. Classified, sure, and camouflaged, and torn up with all the debris from his mother’s car wreck, his father’s murder, and a little sister he could never reign in. All those things, but honest with them, with Danny, and maybe so much about him pissed Danny off but it never held a candle to free accommodation and favours from the governor and lying to the feds like it was any other day.

Danny got angry, got fed up and sick, but Steve wasn’t always the problem.

Usually he had the solution.

*

Steve leaves HQ with Ellie most nights, then regales Danny with her stories the next day. She stays over at the house, brings lunch for the team, and sits in on cases where she might be influential. She’s basically Cath, only in blonde, Australian form. A skin-and-bone overachiever that constantly leaves Steve’s mouth agape. _Steve’s_.

“Danny,” Steve says, the same way he says _Mary_ , and if that isn’t a kick in the nuts. “She’s just a friend.”

Danny grins so hard he can barely see from his squinting. “Oh, right, and I am just a tourist. I wasn’t born yesterday, Steven.”

“I know when you were born because you mark it on my calendar every year with a note saying, _don’t be cheap this year_.”

“And yet - ”

“What’s this about?” Steve snaps, an angry hand clenched around the steering wheel. He cuts glances at Danny, chews on the inside of his mouth, and Danny knows this pisses him off, knows nobody wins, and yet he keeps doing it. Why does he keep doing it it? “You think I jump into bed with every woman I meet?”

“No!” Danny implores, he thinks that's laughable actually. “It just seemed _logical_ that if you’re spending so much time with a person than you’re probably having feelings for said person. Feelings that might not be of a … platonic nature. You know. It just seemed logical.”

“Right,” Steve says, shaking his head. He throws looks at Danny like he knows something Danny doesn’t. “ _Logic_. You’re an expert on that now?”

“Clearly not, if I’m still letting you drive my car everywhere.”

“Look, man,” Steve starts, in that way that means he’s about to finish it. Danny hates that. “You want to pick a fight, go ahead. The beach, the heat, my love for firearms, fine. But don’t – don’t use Ellie as a buffer.”

Danny might think Steve has missed the point, if he can remember what the point was in the first place.

*

When they were trapped under miles of concrete and regret, Danny told Steve the truth. The truth he couldn’t tell Rachel, or Matty, or his Ma. The truth he couldn’t even tell God in the many tight, breathless moments he’d had in his career, thinking he was going to die. The truth: good things did not come to Danny Williams. If good things came to Danny Williams they would soon become bad things of varying degrees.

Rachel left him, Gaby left the country, and Amber just faded into somebody he knew once. Grace, Grace would one day be old enough – one day very, very soon – to pack up her stuff and say goodbye to Hawaii, to Danny, to one day a week and every second weekend. He couldn’t exactly follow a fully grown woman (with her boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancée, life partner, whatever) around the world. As much as he’d like to.

Then Danny would just have an empty house. He’d have Five-0, and work. 

He’d have Steve.

*

Jimmy Tait was Danny’s best buddy in High School. He was a tall, strong, don’t-be-fooled-by-my-size sort of guy that would rather break his back than stab you in yours. Fresh out of academy there was Paul Dupree, a few years after that was Greg Stanton, and Danny was starting to realise all of their parallels. Big, burly men that only pushed their weight around if it meant they were protecting others.

Danny didn’t sleep with any of them (only leaner guys, soft and pliant and agreeable). He’s not sure if that’s important.

“I like this song,” Kono is saying, a humming sound to her voice and her head dropped back. “Someone should dance with me.” 

“Do you still get those privileges if your boyfriend’s out of town?” Chin asks, and there are a chorus of boos around the table until Steve stands up and swings out a hand. Danny sips at his beer with a smirk, trying not to watch, and when Steve says,

“M’lady,” with a bow, Danny has barely finished his mouthful before Kono’s being spun out on to the floor. There’s a slow, effortless ebb to their movements, their heads ducked as they laugh gently together. Steve has his hand wrapped tight around hers, the other resting on her lower back. They look nice, they look _right_ , it pulls at something square in Danny’s chest.

“I can dance,” Danny hears Jerry say. “I choose not to.”

“Right, like I chose not to go pro with the Mets,” he teases, ducking, cackling when Jerry throws his napkin across the table. Danny glances at Steve, who’s watching him over Kono’s shoulder, and they just stay like that, just smiling at each other for a long, stretched out moment. Danny feels stupid, and happy, and home, and he’s not sure how much of that he can bear.

“Thought you might take over,” Steve says quietly when he returns, a hand on Danny’s shoulder as he leans in to steal his beer. Danny gives him a lazy shrug, spreads his knees out a little. Kono’s at the other end of the table trying to pull Lou up for his turn.

“You looked like you had it under control, Fred Astaire.”

Steve smirks at him. “I didn’t say take over from _me_ , Danno,” he mutters, twisting fingers in the hair at the nape of Danny’s neck, briefly, before disappearing in the direction of the bar. Good idea, Danny thought to himself, his mouth hanging open enough to lose breath. I need a fucking drink. 

*

Their first kiss is quiet, which is fitting. Quiet is different for them, quiet is new. Danny doesn’t know what possesses him, to just press an open palm over Steve’s chest and keep him there. To just press his mouth against Steve’s mouth and let that settle for a moment. See what happens. Steve might punch him, he’s considered that. At least push him off, make his excuses, run away.

Steve doesn’t. He makes a grunting sound in the back of his throat, brings his hands up to cradle Danny’s face, then opens his mouth. It’s slick and warm and a little rough, the gritty, catching movements of their skin. Danny’s open palm turns into a fist, clenching at Steve like he needs to make sure that it’s real.

“Babe,” Danny manages to say around jarring breaths, dropping his head. He’s stone cold sober but drunk with this, light headed and confused. They’re in Steve’s kitchen, and a storm is on its way; the wind clatters the windows. 

“Danny?” Steve asks, and his voice is brittle, like he’s breaking open, coercing Danny’s head back up to come in for another kiss. Danny lets him. Steve presses the small of his back into the bench, and Danny lets him. Steve sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, and Danny lets him. Steve wraps him up in the warm, firm length of his body, and Danny lets him.

As with everything, Danny lets him, lets him, lets him. 

“Okay,” he says, peeling himself away, creating space. He runs a traitorous, shaking hand through his hair to anchor and turns his back. “Okay, let’s just, we should just…”

Act normal, Danny thinks, which is stupid because he gave up normal with HPD and the ties and the keys to his car. He gave up normal with his complete and utter dependency on a man who thinks _Loco Moco_ is a legitimate food choice. Danny’s not sure what normal is any more, not even his normal, because _he just kissed Steve_.

“You okay?”

“When Ellie asked us, the other day,” Danny says from nowhere, spinning back around. “About us, about this, you acted like you’d rather eat glass.”

“No,” Steve argues. “I acted like she shouldn’t ask. Not like that.”

“What about if I ask? What then?”

“I don’t know, Danny. We just - ” Fit together? Make sense? Like taking risks? Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know.” 

*

They kiss again around the side of Kono’s house, cloaked in darkness and the far off sound of their friends’ laughter. Danny has his back pressed against the rough, rubbly wall, and his good leg kicked around Steve. Steve has a firm hand in Danny’s thigh, another in his hair, and Danny feels like the catch of the day. All caught up in this net, floundering.

“Fuck,” he says, throwing his head back, which Steve takes as invitation. He noses at the line of Danny’s throat, runs his bottom lip along it, then bites, grazes teeth. “Fuck, Steven, do you have to?”

Steve doesn’t answer. The night air is cool against their skin but this space between them – the lack of – is hot, Danny feels a bead of sweat trickle down his spine. Steve’s not afraid to show Danny that he’s turned on, the tight, hard line of his dick pushing against him, closer and closer like he’s trying to get inside. The thought of that, the thought of being naked and one is almost too much.

“Danny,” Steve says, almost like a growl, and if Danny hurts him when he digs his fingers into the flesh of Steve’s back he doesn’t care. He really doesn’t care. The kiss is filthy, the antithesis of their first, Steve licking out his tongue for Danny’s, like he’s taking him in and reeling him out, piece by piece.

“We gotta - ” Danny hums, taking his leg back, moving Steve off. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, almost afraid to think of what he might look like. His hair’s a mess. “We have to calm down, Jesus.”

“You wanna get out of here?” Steve asks, and in the dim light Danny can see that he’s palming at his dick, trying to will it down. Danny looks away, and bites his lip. Cuts skin with the fingernails digging into his palm

“No,” Danny huffs, swinging his torso in, out, trying to make a decision. “I want…I just need a minute.”

“Are we okay?”

“Yeah,” he assures Steve, they always are. “Yes.”

*

They kiss. Across the front seat of the car, or on Danny’s doorstep or along Steve’s couch with a football game playing, ignored, in the background. They kiss quick and soft, long and warm and wet, and always leading someplace but never getting anywhere. They kiss and it’s calm or it’s frazzled, it’s controlled or it’s desperate; it’s like all of their chats, their bickering, their fights.

It’s like _them_.

“Go out with me,” Steve says, standing at the door to Danny’s office. He’s leant against the jamb, a folder loose in his grip, and it’s like he’s just asked Danny what he wants for lunch today. 

“Sorry, what?”

“Go out with me,” he repeats, then looks at his watch, scratches at his forearm, kicks a boot over the other. He’s wearing a black tee and cargo pants and Danny would laugh, just a little, if he weren’t afraid to offend Steve. “I’ll book a table, you can wear a tie, it’ll be fun.”

“Are you asking or are you telling?”

“Is that a no?”

Danny throws his pen down and leans back in his chair. He stretches and flexes and sighs (he stalls). They go places together all the time. Crime scenes, places of interest, the interrogation room. They’re together _all the time_. “Where are we going?”

The shadow of a victory smile plays at the corner of Steve’s mouth. “It’s a surprise.”

“Are you paying?”

“Yes.”

“Just us?” Danny asks, and for the first time since the last time they kissed, Steve looks a little shy. Pink at the edges and unsure. Unsure if he’s doing this right, maybe, unsure if it’s what Danny wants. Unsure if Danny’s _not tonight_ , and _can we just_ , and withering excuses are because he’s not enough for Danny. 

“Just us.”

*

In the space of a few weeks (a few years, maybe five) Steve’s _no_ has turned in to Steve _very much so, yes_ , Danny’s grief has become his shock. He started this, he tested the water, and Steve did what Steve does and dived in head first. Took the test model and blew it apart. 

Took the pieces, and made them fit.

“You were right,” Steve says over empty plates and the knock of their knees. “Ellie’s important.”

“Yeah.”

“So’s Kono, and Chin, and Lou, and - ”

“Yeah,” Danny says again, and reaches for his glass. It’s getting late, and the place is deserted, and Danny still hasn’t decided if he’s inviting Steve home with him. “I wasn’t trying to cheapen your friendship, you know.”

“I know, but,” Steve pulls at his bottom lip. “You were doing that thing, right? That, I could have something good in my life, so there’s gotta be some way I can fuck it up, thing.”

Danny just blinks at him.

“You know who the first number on my speed dial is?” 

“Me?”

Steve gives him a slow, barely perceptible nod and Danny feels it like a fist at his throat. “You know who’s set as my emergency contact,” he goes on, “Or who’s the main beneficiary in my will, or who’s the only person I couldn’t begin to know how to tell if they pulled me back into active duty? _You_ , Danny.”

“Fuck.”

“I’m not going to sit here and convince you that we should do this.”

Danny wipes at his face with his hand, throws out the other to rest on Steve’s. 

“And,” Steve says, his voice a little broken and his wrist twisting so he can grab hold of Danny’s fingers. “I’m not going to let you convince me we shouldn’t.”

*

Danny invites Steve home. He lays him out and takes his time and learns the only things left to learn. He stakes claim with his mouth and breaks skin with his teeth and takes shelter in the long lines of Steve’s body. 

When someone asks,

“Are you two…” with a pointed finger, Steve’s arm stays wrapped around Danny’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” he says. “We are.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr.](http://thisusandeveryone.tumblr.com)


End file.
